You can make it work...

but I wouldn't recomend it. Allow me to offer a few professonal opinions. you could make this work with the equipment that you currently have. However, if you want it to sound right and sound good note the following. I have two recomendations for you. First, keep the rears! I am not sure if you are taking these out completeyl or not, but rear speakers are important to sound quality. Second, get new crossovers. The crossovers that you have now are made to distribute frequecies bewtween the tweeter and the woofer. If you add the midrange into this it will sound odd. What you need is a crossover made to accomidate a tweeter, midrange and woofer. And third, get a new amp. I know that you didn't want to hear that, but you really should. There are two ways to damage a speaker, over powering it, as I'm sure you know, and under powering it. With your desired configuration, and the amp that you have this is exactly what will happen. That and the fact that you are going to have your amp working like crazy, if you do use this amp expect blown fuses, and distortion at somewhat low volume levels. Now if you get a more powerful amp and new crossovers, this is how it should be installed.

When it is just the woofer and the tweeter the two should not excede a distance of 24". You do NOT want to install the tweeter in the kickpanel (I am assuming you meant the door, but if it actually in the kickpanels this is an even worse place for a tweeter. Tweeters are meant to be installed closer to ear level. From there they should be imaged as best as possible utilizing locations that are somewhat angled towards your head. The midrange should be approx 13' from the tweeter, and finally the woofer could be installed in the factory location in the door or relocated to the kickpanel. There is more flexability with woofer location because they handle lower frequencies, thus they are not directional specific. So if this is something that you want to do let me know and I can tell you how to image and tune your system(HU, amp, crossovers) Keep in mind that in order to tune the crossovers and amp you need access, so don't bury them yet! If you go amp shopping I would recommed something that at least 150x4 @ 4ohms. You can use what you have and bridge it giving you 180x2 @ 2 ohms but you still need that crossover mentioned above. So let me know man via a PM and I will help ya out.

the first recommendation was to keep the rears. there are SO MANY reasons to ditch the rear speakers! from the sq standpoint that has been brought up, it prevents phasing between the rear and front speakers. this will destroy any sonic realism we are trying to create! The second point source of sound will also pull back the sound stage, bringing it closer to the head rather than far forward. one of the major concepts of "SQ", is to have a stage placed far ahead of the listener! I have heard some benefits of raising the stage by running rear speakers, but its so few and far between, why add needless complexity? Rear speakers are not important to sound quality in a 2 channel stereo system at all!

and if all those "sq" reasons are not enough to make someone want to ditch the rears, how about having those large open holes to let all that nice bass into the cabin? its like having your seats permanently folded down!

Now, dont get me wrong, I dont advocate everyone to go to their car and pull the rears! especially with stock systems, or people running *either* infinity reference or CDT classics up front, removing the rears can often create a massive midbass gap between the stage and subwoofer that is absolutley insurmountable. But we are obviously dealing with a guy who will have plenty plenty of midbass support to cover any potential distance between his midrange driver and the subwoofer!

whats this about overpowering and underpowering speakers? not even an issue here! only two things kill a speaker, and it has nothing to do with power! mechanical overload and thermal overload. (and one can argue fatigue.) But certainly not underpowering! for a good read to straighten out this underpowering issue, I suggest everyone reads the following resource: http://www.caraudioforum.com/vbb3/sh...d.php?t=224025
its the last Ill mention anything involving blowing spekaers or power. the amp he has now is fine. no blown fuses (unless he puts a 10 amp-er in there), no blown speakers (unless he tunes like a retarded 3rd grader. I assume he is smarter than that.)

before I get to crossovers, I had one question you brought up about speaker position. man, you are right about how nothing can be more important than speaker position! ... But first you say dont put the midrange and tweeter more than 24 inches apart. THEN you say they need to be closer to ear level. these contradict each other! finally, in an attempt to resolve the conflict, you suggest putting the tweeter in the door 13 inches above the mid, whether its in a kickpanel or in the door. wierd!

the fact of the matter, is that in a 2 channel stereo system designed for "sound quality" (and nothing in this thread is more important than that term, by a large margin) the tweeter can absolutly go in the kickpanel. The best car I ever heard had tweeters sitting on a pair if t-shirts in the kickpanel area! (you may opt to believe the car sounded like crap as a result, thats fine. your perogative. I know the truth.) realistically, we put the tweters on the a-pillars for a reason. our legs do a great job of blocking highs, and certainly would if the tweets were 13 inches above the floor! even in the kicks we cna block them. finally, its very very easy to have issues with a low soundstage with the tweets on the floor. with everything *finely* tuned, usually the midrange doesnt have too much of an issue rising to the occasion, when properly seated in the kickpanel area.

so up high it is, for the tweets! the only two problems we have are reflections, and uneven speaker path lengths. dash mat covers one, and balence covers the other one! set!

I do agree however, that a more on axis direction to point the tweeter (towards the head) prevents shallow rolloffs and make the whole stereo "shimmer" more, if I may use an esoteric psychosomatic term. (if I wont be allowed to, simply ignore that I said it.)

whew! but what about the crossovers? I would be a fool to suggest you were mistaken to say a crossover isn't important to the system. in fact, ill go farther, to suggest it is THE most important part of the system! (minus speaker choice of course) you are right, he definitely definite needs to cover that. But he doesnt need to purchase a brand new passive crossover, the one he has now is just fine!

the next part I am writing for drew, not for you spyder, so its gonna be some stuff you already know. Drew, what spyder was trying to say when he was talking about the crossover, is that its important for each speaker to get its proper frequencies. I bet even you know this very well. But when we think about the nitty gritty, youve got a full four way system! that means your subwoofer needs a low pass filter. your tweets need a highpass filter. and your midbass and midrange both need *bandpass* filters! thats a TON of filtration!

so what do you have? you have your passive network, thatll highpass your tweeter, and lowpass your midrange. your sub amp will lowpass your subwoofer. we are left with three filters we still need!

now, I dont know if your amp will be able to do that. if it can't, and your radio can't compensate, you need an external crossover! I highly recommend an aftermarket active crossover anyways! (dont worry abotu the passive one) but Ill assume you arent looking for world class sound quality (read: world class expensive) and so you can get away with less tuning ability than youd ideally need.

I am going to repeat this, for everyone. An active crossover gives you more tuning ability and more control over your sound than any radio, amplifier, equilizer, or signal processor (minus those with crosovers) hands down. play with one, and its easy to see why your crossover cutoffs, and chosen slopes, simply change the whole dynamic of the speaker more than simply adjusting an EQ slider will. its amazing the control over the sound we have!

but its expensive to run EVERY speaker in the car individually amplified with its own eq, ta, and crossover settings, isnt it? expensive signal processors, expensive EQ's, expensive crossovers, expensive amplifiers, lots of wiring, etc. pain in the butt!

so we are going to cheat a little bit. we will KEEP the passive crossovers you have now! what you can do, is put your midrange drivers in the kicks, tweets in the a-pillars (remember, kicks are fine, be concerned about leg blockage, but they perform very well in kicks too!) and simply run the front channels of your kicker 4 channel amp to the passive crossover you have now. then simply use the onboard crossove rto highpass the whole system (oh, say, 120 Hz. youll have to adjust this yourself, of course, fine tune the sound you want.)

You now have everything covered minus a bandpass crossover for your midbass driver!

here is where I try to get a little tricky when I can. Sometimes, amplifiers have rca outs that will take a setting from the onboard crossover. for example, you MIGHT be able to set your kicker 4 channel amp to, say, highpass the front outs at 120 Hz, then lowpass line level signal from 120 Hz out the preamp outputs (the cutoff would be controlled by the same dial as the front highpass cutoff. its not ideal, as you can-not independantly adjust the frequency, but remember that cost/performance ratio? itll at least work!) then you can simply piggyback the outputs to the rear inputs of the amp, and use THAT crossover as the highpass (say, 55 Hz cutoff) for your midbass!

and now you have power to your midbass drivers, and they are bandpass filtered!

amp can't do it? youll need an external crossover. maybe you want the independant control anyways.

with the equipment you have now, you MUST use your passive filter that came with the component set. I assume you had planned to run that anyways. thats fine, actually!as long as we arent talking about world class "sq", (and when were we ever talking about world class sq?) then we are allowed to take liscence to do so!

but to spend money on a 3 way passive filter? that simply makes no sense.

the only reason to get a new amp is if you want to run a fully active system. expect big cost increases. I say forget about it till you want that kind of tunability, especially when you can get everything running well for a daily driver with what you have now (minus MAYBE needing a crossover)

Whoa, dude just read it thru

Hey man, I never said that he COULDN'T accomplish what we wants with what he has. I am used to working on high end cars, and work is only done right. I am not saying that your way is wrong, but I just wouldn't do it that way. I SUGGESTED, my methods, thats all.

Let me clarifiy this:

"before I get to crossovers, I had one question you brought up about speaker position. man, you are right about how nothing can be more important than speaker position! ... But first you say dont put the midrange and tweeter more than 24 inches apart. THEN you say they need to be closer to ear level. these contradict each other! finally, in an attempt to resolve the conflict, you suggest putting the tweeter in the door 13 inches above the mid, whether its in a kickpanel or in the door. wierd!"

Well, when I was taking about the distance of 24" between the tweeters and the woofers those two should not be more than 24" apart when you only have those two components. When you introduce a midrange the tweeter and midrange should be a certain distance apart as well as the midrange and woofer. The TWEETERS should be close to ear level, I never said the midrange and/or woofer. You two seemed to be getting the two mixed up woofer vs. midrange. As for your piece on ditching the rears, I STILL COULDN'T AGREE MORE! Now if, and only if this kid is running 2.1 off his sound card(doubtful, but for agruements sake) then, and only then do I support this. I have a stong feeling this is not the case. Simply put, a quadraphonic configuration is better than that of a biphonic. This is that whole imagery thing gagin, so very important, and so VERY over looked! The rear speakers can offer a lot to the over all sound quality, especially if you are watching a movie or playing a game. Would you disconnect your rear speakers of your home theater? Of course not! And why wouldn't you want to do this I ask you...? Your (silent) answer defends my point, and I rest my case on that issue. It is certainly possible to damage a speaker by underpowering it, Underpowering a speaker is likely to damage the voice coil due to the excess heat created by distortion. This distortion, called clipping, is created when the amp is not able to supply the power demand when the volume is turned up. If you turn the volume up very high without the power to back it up, you'll end up clipping the signal coming out of the amp. The speaker will try to reproduce this clipped signal, and if played under these circumstances for any length of time, the speaker will not last very long. There is a mis-conception that if you're not giving the speaker as much power as it can handle you won't blow it, but that simply is not the case. The only way to really address this problem is to replace your speaker for one with a lower power rating, and a higher SPL rating, or replace your amp with one that better matches the speaker's power handling capability, but the number one cause of speaker damage has nothing to do with power or signal. It is UV damage. CROSSOVERS! This guy most certainly will need a three way crossover vs. the two way that came with the speakers to make this sound right. The simple fact is that between the two of us we could get this thing done for this guy, but really this is what I have done in the past and certified for as well as other A/V installations, designs and the like.

my point of confusion is your contradictory statements. I think I understand now what you are trying to say, but it seems to suggest that your ideal method of installation is a midbass driver in the kickpanel, a midrange halfway up the door, and the tweeter in the a-pillar. thus, no speaker is more than 24 inches apart than its next constituent, and the tweeter is up high. right? its a very strange configuration though. But your claim to want to put the tweeter high and the midrange in the kickpanel seems to break your rule of 24 inches though. (which I think is a bogus rule, as MANY people including me have more seperation than that between the drivers and enjoy high end sound.)

your position seems to be ditch the rears only if he is going 2 channel audio. my position is only keep the rears if he is going 5.1. I think we both can leave it at that, since neither one of us has to give up anything to get our position. its simple agree to disagree.

unfortunately, you didnt read the post about underpowering speakers. clipping IS overpowering a speaker! read the link, and you'll be able to tell me exactly why your post about underpowering a speaker is bogus.

and I still think active filtration is best rather than passive filtration, and that a combination of the two will be better than trying to find a pair of 3 way passive filters designed for the 3 way kicker set. But I think we can agree to disagree on that one, too.

im curious what you've got to say about underpowering versus the CAF article. because what he says (and backs up with specific details abotu the waveform and amplifier theory) completely contradicts what you have to say about underpowering and distortion, backed up without quantification, but only qualification.

I would say let me spell out what I am trying to say, but... Okay once more let me explain the whole configuration of the woofer/midbass, the midrange, and the tweeter. If you are just installing, JUST the woofer/midbass and the tweeter those two components shouldn't be more than 24" inches apart. When you are installing a midrange speaker IN ADDITION TO the woofer/midbass and the tweeter the distances between the woofer/midbass speakers can be different. Now keep in mind that all of these speakers are going to be installed in doors, with exception to the woofer/midbass and or tweeter. The woofer/midbass CAN BE installed in the lowest part of the door or in the kick panel, we both should agree on this. We both should also agree that the tweeter can be installed either towards the top of the door or above the door in the A pilar. This location is CLOSER to the head and/or ears than in the kick panels, agreed. Now that we are talking about three speakers the configuration is will be different that that of two. The woofer/midbass CAN now be installed further away from the tweeter, the midrange will be in between them (as I am sure you know) and there are distances that should be observed(as mentioned before) so that you can get the best possible sound quality.

As for that article, that I did read, I couldn't agree with you more. That is if you have an amp that is very well matched with the speakers like in the article. In this case it is not so, and I still am going to stick by my guns, why am I so stubborn on this? Numbers don't lie, there is math behind this, I know I am right. Are you going off of that one article? I have one word for you man... really look this up, you are partially correct in this debate, but not enough for me to back down, or to say "yep man you're right, I totally over looked a few things" nor I am not swinging fists at you.

clipping and distorion = overpowering, It doesnt get much simpler than that. the amplifiers dont have to "match" at all! voltage is voltage, power is power! i dunno, man. I'll give up on that one too.

But I still recommend midrange in the kickpanels, midbass drivers in the doors, and the tweets in the a-pillars. here are my reasons:

get the midranges to have as equal pathlength to the ears as possible. that means pushing them as far away as possible.

I want the tweeters up high so my legs dont block the frequencies. the a-pillars are more equal than the sail panels, and a dash mat can help reflections. the more unequal pathlengths (compared to kickpanels) are not as important, as I can tune them into center without a need for fancy tuning equipment. furthermore, I dont have to worry about things like a center console, pasengers legs, the underdash, etc to get in the way of the sound. they can get finicky!

the midbass go into the doors because there is simply no other place for them. I need t/a to get them to center due to the uneven pathlengths, but Im stuck. but thats okay.

I dont know anything about running just a midbass driver and a tweeter, noone anywhere ever has no midrange coverage in their car. ever. ever. in this case, the guy is looking at adding a midbass driver, not a midrange.

but the fact is, that there are plenty of cars at iasca world finals that break your 24" rule. and few that have midranges in the doors or up high as opposed to the kickpanel area. for the exact reasons specified above.

tried google, but just got unverifiable sites. I did the work to give you the exact info that contradicted your statements, the least you could do is the same. *shrug*?

The actual rule- as opposed to the rules of thumb above- is that the center of the tweeter should not be more than one wavelength at the crossover frequency away from the center of the woofer/midrange. If the crossover says the woofer/tweeter crossover is at 3khz for example, there should not be more than 6" between the center of the two. This assumes the speakers are aligned vertically or close to that. If more than one wavelength separates the two you'll have peaks and valleys in the phase/frequency response at the crossover frequency and the sound will seem to cover from a large area instead of an instrument or a voice. This is especially important for vocals which fall right in the crossover area. Keep them as close as possible- kicks, doors whatever. If you do separate them, keep the separation vertical towards the listeners to avoid the spread of the sound.

If you are using an in car computer, you might consider using an active crossover (they are relatively inexpensive) of the 4th order LW (see the crossover specs). Make sure the crossover offers adjustable frequencies and gain. You'll need dual amps but you can then use something like DRC (google it) to provide lots and lots of compensation options. Without a computer in the car I wouldn't recommend this but since you've got the CPU, may as well use it.